Many Things
by Redlance-ck
Summary: In which we find Pete, Myka, and a hefty tub of ice-cream. Myka/Pete friendship, mentions of Bering and Wells. One-shot


**Disclaimer: **Warehouse 13, the world and the characters that inhabit it do not belong to me in any way, though sometimes I lie away at night wishing that they did and what I'd do with them if they did. And then I write those thoughts down.

**A/N:** Post 4x06 fic. And kind my first attempt at a Pete/Myka centric fic. I just really love their friendship. I want to curl up with it at night so it can keep me warm.

* * *

Pete is so much more than the brother Myka never had, though describing him to someone as such doesn't belittle their relationship in the slightest, it just doesn't explain it properly at all. She isn't sure she **could** explain their it, even if asked. She loves him. Like a brother, like a partner, like a best friend, she loves him with every breath that leaves her, because everyday he's instrumental in drawing the air from her lungs. There have been days, long days that tumbled into sleepless nights, where he had been the **only** thing that kept her going. And she appreciates that more than words or heartfelt punches to the arm could possibly convey.

Sometimes, she wonders if he knows. Worries that he doesn't. And then is reassured whenever she attempts to awkwardly bring it up that he, in fact, does know because he's "not that dense, Mykes, jeez."

He's thoughtful and endearing in all the ways a little brother might be, and protective and supporting in the way every partner **should **be.

He's her Pete. And she loves him.

He loves her too. Enough to fleetingly wonder about what it might be like to have a family with her, apparently, and as weird as that might have been to her initially, on further examination it isn't that weird at all. Because they're already family, and she knows his little mishap with the dog-tags wasn't a reflection on some deep-seated want to deepen their relationship, but rather an emergence of his paternal side. He's always loved kids; he just wants one of his own to love now.

It's as she's pondering the mechanics and ethics of a child within the boundaries of the Warehouse when a rhythmic, and decidedly telling, knocking jerks her from her reverie. It's telling because Pete is the only person she knows who refuses to cross over onto the side of 'adult door knocking' and just rap at a door three times, instead of tapping out all seven notes of 'Shave and A Hair Cut' – the 'two bits' section only sounding once she has lifted her head, of course. And so, she is utterly unsurprised to find him hovering in the open doorway. Door closing has never really been as issue at Leena's, unless she's putting her head down to sleep. She'd grown up in a house where a closed door was sometimes her only escape and she relishes the fact that here, that is no longer the case. That combined with Pete living under the same roof, and Claudia existing in a constant state of forgetting how to knock at all, and there is very little in terms of privacy.

She's thankful for the deadbolt on the bathroom door.

He's leaning against the frame, straddling the threshold line and looking a little more pensive compared with what she's used to.

"Hey." She says with a curve of her lips, slipping a bookmark between the pages of the paperback in her lap she'd long since forgotten about and closing it. He smiles in response and she finds herself, not for the first time, charmed by his boyish grin and handsome features. He's the embodiment of a human goofball, among so many other things.

"It occurred to me," he starts, finally making his way into the room, "too late, as usual," and that's when she notices the tub of ice-cream he's got nestled between his arm and lower ribcage. "That sometimes I can be kind of a jerk." She frowns, snapping her gaze from his precious cargo and up to his face, the motion lightening fast in her confusion. He smiles again, presumably in response to the frown she's now wearing. A frown that only deepens when Pete closes the door behind him.

Because Pete barely closes the door to the bathroom when he's peeing. And she doesn't know where he picked up that habit from because she's met his mother, and Jane Lattimer would be having none of that.

"H.G. called me an 'ignoramus' once and I only kind of knew what it meant when she said it," Myka's lips quirk at the corners, "and then I was like, really mad when I cracked a dictionary, but now I think she kinda might have been right." Myka purses her lips, observing him from her place curled into the threadbare armchair beside the bookshelf as he moves towards her bed and gives a little jump, throwing himself backward onto it.

"But you're only an ignoramus about half of the time." Myka assures him with a grin and he sticks his tongue out at her, before patting the empty space beside him and beckoning her over to join him. She rises with only a little hesitation, because she still has no idea why he's here. But Pete and ice-cream usually mean a call for comfort, and so she's sure that whatever reason has brought him here is important.

He stretches out his legs, wiggling his socked toes as she takes a seat on the bed and mimics his positioning.

"I was just thinking about everything that went down with Alice," he pauses, rolling the ice-cream tub back and forth in his palms, "'Part Two: Back Down the Rabbit Hole'." She chuckles and catches him glancing sidelong at her in her periphery. "And it suddenly hit me." And now he turns his head to look at her, properly curiosity painted across her features, properly. "That maybe Alice wasn't really who you were trying to talk about when we were up on the balcony." And the way he says it, with total assuredness despite that small 'maybe' and a knowing, albeit sad, smile, makes her completely unable to deny the gentle accusation. There's no way she can convincingly back peddle her way out of this one, not that she's sure she wants to.

Because the thing is, Myka's been trying **not** to have this conversation for far too long now and her unanswered questions and the insecurities that had once been buried deeply enough to only occasionally poke and prod at her, are starting to eat her from the inside out.

But she hangs her head and avoids his eyes, all childlike glimmers and far too intuitive depths, because even though she might want to talk about it, that doesn't mean that she had even the fainted idea of just where to begin. But then there comes the clinking sound of metal brushing against metal and suddenly a spoon is being waved under her nose, and she looks up to find him popping off the lid of the ice-cream tub with the thumb of his free hand, the handle of his own spoon protruding from his mouth.

"You gon' need'a helme wid dis," he mumbles around the utensil, eventually wrestling the lid off and placing it atop the nightstand beside the bed, then taking the spoon in hand. "I know you're not really gung-ho for comfort eating, but this is going right to my hips and you can't let me get fat all on my lonesome." She spends a few seconds staring at him, gaze flickering back and forth between his eyes and the tub being paraded in front of her until it settles, and she feels the smile start to overtake her face.

Pete Lattimer is so very many things. But sometimes, he's just adorable.

She takes the offered spoon and he's grinning at her as he insists she takes the first bite. Like a good agent, she does as she's told, and lifts a helping of the odd concoction to her lips. It's a strange mix, and not at all what she would have guessed he might choose for himself, but he digs in enthusiastically and retrieves a generous spoonful. It disappears inside his mouth and he releases a sound that is positively indecent.

"Oh my god," he says around his mouthful, 'sassy best friend' persona slipping into place. "This is to die for." She laughs at him, bumping her shoulder against his as she dips her spoon back into the tub. Her eyes trace the patterns on the colourful container.

"How much of your love for this stuff is to do with the name?" She asks, eyeing him wryly as he turns the tub towards him so he can read the brightly lettered proclamation of 'Chunky Monkey' that's been printed onto one side.

"About sixty-forty." He replies honestly, and she shakes her head.

They sit in companionable silence for a little while, taking turns with their spoon and staring at the wall opposite them as if all of the answers to their unvoiced questions are hidden inside a stereogram image painted on its surface.

"Look," he says, licking his spoon clean and tilting his head to catch her gaze, "I'm sorry I was so... clinical about Alice. Why she is the way she is." And Myka starts to shake her head, starts to tell him that it doesn't matter and that it's okay, but Pete **knows** that it does and it isn't. "Sometimes I don't see what's right in front of my face," and he holds the hand not gripping his spoon out, fingers splayed, so that it's hovering in front of him, "until it-" Myka's arm comes up, the flat of her palm connecting with his knuckles as she pushes Pete's hand into his face with enough force to make him grip his nose and whine like a kicked puppy. "Hey!" She lets out a laugh and he tries to hide his smile behind his faux-indigence, because it's the first real laugh he's heard from her all day. "Foul play, lady! I could report you to the Regents for partner abuse."

"But you won't." She smiles, scrunching her nose up at him as he rubs gingerly at the tip of his own.

"I might." Myka rolls her eyes and he watches as her smile starts to wane. He shouldn't have mentioned the Regents. "Must have been a pretty tough grab for you though, huh?" He knits his eyebrows together as she absently worries her lower lip, digging the curved edge of the spoon into the softening ice-cream over and over again to create little half moons all over its uneven surface. "I mean, not only did you have to revisit the whole 'darker side of the looking-glass' thing, there were a whole mess of H.G. connections too, and-"

"That isn't..." she interrupts him, and even though she takes a long breath, he doesn't jump back in at the pause. He just waits. "It was hard." When the admission finally comes, it's whispered. "But it's always hard." And her voice cracks in a way that makes his heart ache.

"How come you don't," he make a pointless gesture with his hand, like he's trying to wave something away, "talk about her?" He glances up at her, a pained look skittering darkly across his features. "You know you can talk to me, right?" If she were the type of person who freely threw around physical affection, she thinks she might have done something like cup his cheek. Or hugged him really, really tight.

"I know." She says softly instead, wondering how exactly she's supposed to explain something like her relationship with Helena when she herself doesn't understand it one hundred percent of the time. She hands the tub back to him and he takes it to carve out a Pete-sized chunk. "I don't talk about it, about any of it, because it just," she shakes her head wonderingly, green eyes shimmering as they search the ceiling of her room, "it hurts, Pete." Her voice comes as a low, almost broken murmur, and she feels him shift beside her. Then, there's an arm around her shoulder and she's being pulled in to his embrace. It's warm and comforting, and part of her is so grateful that even though she might not be an outwardly affectionate person, he is. Another part of her want to curl into him and stay there forever.

He's her big brother, her best friend. He's part of the family that means everything to her.

"I know it does." He whispers, she can feel his lips moving against her hair as she rolls half onto her side and presses her cheek against his shoulder. And of course he does. He's lost someone he loves too. He rests his hand against the top of her arm and pats her reassuringly. "But she'll be back." The most pitiful laugh he's ever heard leaves her at his words, wet and hiccuping, strangled by her sorrow. It's disbelieving and almost bitter, and she resents the sound even as she's making it. Because she wants to have hope. She **needs** to have hope.

"There's been no word from her, or about her in weeks, Pete." She argues, running the pad of her thumb beneath her eye. "It's like she's just vanished off the face of the Earth." And she can feel all of the frustration, built up over weeks upon weeks of **waiting**, starting to swell within her. "Again."

"Hey." His tone is as strong as the press of his finger against her chin, urging her head up as he pulls back so that he can look at her. Her eyes are red and glassy, his are soft and understanding, even in their ferocity. "She'll be back, Mykes." And she has no clue how long he's know about her and H.G., because she's pretty sure she's still figuring things out for herself, but in this moment she's so happy that **someone** seems to know what's going on between them. She's especially happy that it's him, and that he's still looking at her in the same way he always has. With that omnipresent mischief shining in his eyes and reassuringly certain smile inching closer to a grin with each second that passes. "Who could just leave **you** behind?" A chuckle bubbles up and slips free, and he slides into sleazy-Pete with an ease that has been much practised. "Have you seen you? You're hot. Like, really hot." She smacks at his chest, a few quick and stinging slaps to his pectoral muscle, and now he's the one who's laughing.

"Stop being creepy!" She snaps, laying on her authoritative voice in a way that only makes him laugh harder and grip her more tightly when she tries to squirm away. She eventually stops struggling when he pulls her so close her face is kind of mashed against his chest.

Pete Lattimer is many things to Myka Bering.

Tonight, she decides, he might just be her saviour.


End file.
